Evaluation Question 1 - Real Media Conventions

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When preparing for our film's construction in the research and planning phase, we had to look into some real media products for some inspiration. When doing this, we focused on the film Enough, which seemed to share a few of our desired qualities, like the broken relationship. We looked into stereotypes exercised in this film, and compared these to them in general thriller films to see what stereotypes and guidelines we should pay attention to when creating our film.

Short films require snappy action and events to grab the viewers and let them know quickly if it's what they're looking for. This means in thrillers, action or suspense needs to be immediate, and viewers want to find themselves in a situation they can see is clearly a thriller so they know to carry on watching and don't get bored. There are plenty other firms out there and if they get bored in the first 30 seconds they may click onto the next one. As a class and individually, we researched short films at the start of the A2 course. I have embedded my favourite example below:

Thriller Film Examples

I will discuss examples of films that fall into the thriller genre. I will talk about their similarities to my own film and use images to help compare them and see what conventions of thrillers the films share.

Male Characters
Male characters in thrillers tend to have one of two main types of personality. the first, is a brave hero-like character who often leads the 'goodies' into victory over the 'baddies'. Another type is a high-placed and rich character (usually a businessman or businessman-like character) who is not exactly portrayed as good or bad. In the 2008 thriller film 'Taken', the main male protagonist is a brave hero who goes out to save his daughter by violent and righteous means.

Some would rightfully argue that this was a slight overreaction, but you have to remember that the people he's talking to are the villains who captured his daughter, and him being the heroic main male protagonist has to go and save her.

Our character, however, is not so heroic, and instead falls into the businessman category. Richard is in a well-paying job, and this job places him high in the social hierarchy in modern society. This is enhanced by his costume and what he is seen carrying in scene 2; a suit, formal wear and a briefcase.

Our character has a somewhat lower 'scare factor' than the character in 'Taken', but he is also dressed more formally, and the way he positions himself and his facial expressions say that he is in a 'higher place' than the character in 'Taken', and sees others (maybe women in particular) as inferior to himself.

I have noticed a difference in representation in feature length films and in short films. Or, rather a difference in magnitude than type. By this, I mean in a feature film like 'Enough', the team have a couple of hours to show their characters develop or be thoroughly represented, but in shorts, they have a matter of minutes. For us, we had to show Richard's character and personality as best as we could in maybe ten or twenty seconds in scene 2, so that the viewers know what he is like on a normal day and how he differs from when he is seen in scene 1, just minutes after the death of Alice, his girlfriend.

Gender Representation in Thrillers

Here I will use a presentation to talk about how genders are portrayed in thriller films and how they differ, especially in terms of social status, appearance and how they act to each other and people of the opposite sex.

General Conventions of Thrillers

Key-frame of 'Behind Closed Doors'

Image 1: The antagonist
Image 2: The victim
Image 3: Plot climax
Image 4: Setting

Key-frame of 'Knowing Too Much'

Image 1: The antagonist
Image 2: The victim
Image 3: Plot climax
Image 4: Setting

Image 1
The antagonist, or 'villain', is a major convention of a thriller film. They are often represented as solely evil, but sometimes can be granted a fuller background and personality, making them more interesting. Usually, the antagonists have some king of vendetta they are perusing, and this is often against the protagonist or somebody very close to them, like a family member or something (in Taken, it is the main character's daughter).

Hannibal Lecter, 'The Silence of the Lambs' (1991)

As you can see in image 1 in the key-frame for 'Knowing Too Much', a short thriller film, you can see that he is trying to hide his identity, and he does so by the audience never knowing his name. It is made clear, however, that he means to kill the protagonist because he has stumbled upon some information he shouldn't know, and so the antagonist needs to kill him to secure the knowledge.

This convention is used in my short thriller 'Behind Closed Doors', as Richard (Alex Marks), the male character, is seen at the beginning of scene 2, but his features are kept hidden. This is to hide his possible intentions and to make him appear superior to the version of him we see at the very start of the film. Hiding a character's face can make them appear more threatening and of a higher place on the social hierarchy, making them more important than others. Richard is portrayed this way because he is in a well-paying business job, and therefore dresses formally and acts superior to Alice (Rebecca Chapman).

Image 2
In thrillers, the protagonists are usually young, and they're nearly always male. In 'Knowing Too Much', this is followed, as you can see in the key-frame. They are usually strong and brave, and are trying to restore the equilibrium. In the key-frame example of 'Knowing Too Much', the protagonist is a young male, which half follows the conventions of thrillers.

In my thriller film, our protagonist is a young female character called Alice. She is nice and caring, but also defensive, in the way she stands up for herself when Richard comes home.

Alice from 'Behind Closed Doors'

We have subverted the generalised stereotypical young male protagonist and replaced it with  respectable and caring young female. Instead of battling the antagonist physically, she does it more verbally, and this is another subversion from the original stereotype. We studied a film titled 'Enough' from 2002, and this film has a similar storyline to ours (a broken relationship), and the protagonist is a young female, much like our own. However, she is very physical - especially towards the end - when battling the antagonist, which is kind of following thriller stereotypes more than ourselves. But, we did use this as a basis of help for when we created our female character as we wanted her to be a little like Slim from in the film, just less physically aggressive.

Slim from 'Enough'

Image 3
In every film there is a climax, but in thrillers they seem to always be violent. In the two key-frames, you can see they both include violence. This is a conventional aspect of thriller films, and we used this to make our film more thrilling to our hungry target audience. In our film, the climax examples are of Alice and Stacy's deaths, where the former falls down the stairs and the latter is strangulated but Richard. We felt the first death would portray Richard's character and show why Alice was dead at the beginning of scene 1, and this death also took focus away from what Richard intends to do to Stacy. The second death is a shock, and we put this is just after some nice, friendly atmosphere created by our two actors to draw attention away from the evil Richard and to the possible relationship between him and Stacy. We wanted it to be sudden, and we wanted it to be unexpected to help create a more defined thriller ending.

Stacy seconds before her murder

This death opens an unanswered question about Richard's personality. Did he intentionally kill Alice, too? OR was it her death which made him turn and kill Stacy? Things like this are also conventional of thrillers, and they leave the viewers' imagination to interpret what they think happened to the characters. This makes the death more interesting, and lets the audience think about it, as there's no real given answer.

Image 4

In thrillers, the setting is usually dark and often dismal. In the short film example I used above, you can see the bluish dark tint of night, and the film my group produced was also mainly set at night, creating a darker (literally!) atmosphere. This can also aid the imagination of the viewers, and make them believe they're a part of the film.

Richard in the latter half of scene 2

We chose this setting because it, along with the hazy video effects, made the scene look plainer, darker and more bland than if it were bright with shining colours and areas. Thrillers are conventionally like this, and such is the way of our film, that it compliments the narrative, story and characters in the way they present darkness. It is also to show what's going on in our characters' minds, meaning they are thinking this way as well as acting this way.